1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to an input device, and more particularly, to a touchless input device and application thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ever since Apple Inc. presented the iPhone and the iPod to the public, the touch man-machine interface (MMI) has become increasingly fashionable. The touch MMI provides a more instinctive and convenient user experience, and so such technology has gradually spread from cellular phones to IT consumer electronic products such as notebooks, digital cameras, handheld game consoles, computer keyboards, and electronic dictionaries, etc. However, since operating a typical touch panel requires pressing a finger on the display panel, such that the operation thereof is limited to a “planar operation”, the degrees of freedom of a waving human finger are not fully utilized. Moreover, after usage, many residual fingerprints are likely to remain on the display panel, such that after a long period of use the display panel would become dirty or filled with germs thereon. As for applications in the public, for example a hospital information inquiry terminal or an automated teller machine, people may worry whether germs have remained from previous operators, especially in light of the recent epidemic diseases such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), enteroviruses, H1N1, etc. that are highly infectious diseases. Therefore, people may have major misgivings about virus infections through touch.
Accordingly, a technical concept of touchless operation arises in order for the user to directly use hands for operation, without having to wear any sensing devices. The touchless technical concept is needed in a situation in which the user can wave gestures in different directions to achieve the purpose of input without touching the screen, and by simple waves of the palms in coordination with different applicable situations combined with backend application programs, the user is able to obtain different responses at the output terminal. Taiwan Patent Nos. I291890, I303775 and I237186, as well as Taiwan Patent Publication No. 200900120 disclose touchless techniques.
In Taiwan Patent No. I291890 (hereinafter “890 patent”), for example, the 890 patent applies for “AN ELECTRIC DEVICE WITH MOTION DETECTION ABILITY”, which uses a micro-inertial sensing module (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, etc.) to sense the moving and rotating actions of a pair of hands and accordingly generates sensing signals to a sensing signal processing unit for performing signal processing, so as to serve as an input to make the electric device generate response. However, the 890 patent still requires adopting a hand-holding scheme for input, such that in public usage the proposed device cannot avoid the issues of residual dirt, germs, etc. caused by multi-user operation.
In Taiwan Patent Publication No. 200900120 (hereinafter “120 patent”), for example, the 120 patent applies for “AN INTERACTIVE GAMING SYSTEM”, which includes a positioning host and a wireless controller. The positioning host has a first, a second and a third ultrasonic receiving modules; and the wireless controller has an ultrasonic transmitting module. After the first, the second and the third ultrasonic receiving modules of the positioning host receive the ultrasonic signal transmitted by the ultrasonic transmitting module of the wireless controller, the positioning host would calculate the coordinates of the wireless controller, and thus the positioning host would obtain and display the coordinates of the wireless controller on a display device. However, even though the 120 patent can utilize the degrees of freedom for human hands in three-dimensional (3D), the user is still required to wear sensors, thereby making the proposed gaming system inconvenient to use.
In Taiwan Patent No. 1303775 (hereinafter “775 patent”), for example, the 775 patent applies for “A MOTION DETECTION SYSTEM AND MOTION DETECTION METHOD”, in which the motion detection system is composed by a sensing display panel, a plurality of switching units, a detection unit and a control unit. A plurality of metal sensing areas are set on the sensing display panel, and each of the metal sensing areas is sequentially set to be a detection sensing area. Each of the metal sensing areas is electrically connected to a switching unit so as to switch the potential of each of the metal sensing areas. During a detection phase, the detection unit calculates a discharging time of the detection sensing area so as to generate a detection result signal. However, the 775 patent detects the motion of fingers on the sensing display panel by using characteristics of the capacitance effect and the hardware configuration. Even though the 775 patent discloses a detection without touching the display panel, since the range of application for capacitive motion detection is not far enough, and due to the limiting measurement area of the fingers, the sensing range is only a few centimeters. Accordingly, the proposed system and method seem quite inconvenient for use.
In Taiwan patent No. 1237186 (hereinafter “186 patent”), for example, the 186 patent applies for “AN INTERACTIVE BOOK SYSTEM BASED ON ULTRASONIC POSITION DETERMINATION”, which includes an ultrasonic pointing unit, an ultrasonic base unit, a control unit and a response unit to allow a reader to interact with the printed material by placing the ultrasonic pointing unit on various areas of the printed page. However, since the reader must wear a sensor (i.e. the ultrasonic pointing unit) to input, the proposed book system also seems quite inconvenient for use.